Top Chef 6/3/21--"Tournament of Tofu" summary

 

Previously on “Top Chef”: the contestants were asked to make food with hipster ingredients using vintage equipment. Yeah, sure. Dawn won an advantage in the Elimination Challenge, which was useless in the end because it didn't matter. The challenge was to write a recipe for home cooks. It should serve six and take 90 minutes. Some people did not do that well, but honestly it usually takes months or years to write a cookbook and many chefs will hire editors to make sure the recipes are written well and makes sense. Some of the All-Stars followed the recipes so the judges could try them side-by-side with the contestants, supposedly to make sure the recipe was easy to follow. Gabe had an amazing sauce and the recipe resulted in an identical dish, so he was the winner. While Byron had a four page recipe, and Jamie's dish was a poor concept, Chris once again screwed up pasta. As in, not only was the recipe dish bad but the dish he himself made was not great. So Chris finally went home. (click for more)

In Last Chance Kitchen, Sara and Chris had to make dishes in about 15 minutes. The gimmick was that Tom was driving around a racetrack and they didn't know how much time they had to cook, since it was a vague “when Tom gets here”. Sara won, and then revealed in confessional that she thought Chris should have gone home before her and now the internet's mad that she's a terrible person. But she's right and also is allowed to be salty that it was her first time in the bottom and Chris had been there several times. Big deal.

Dawn and Jamie talk about how they're down to the final six. The girls are supporting each other. At least Jamie says so and I don't see why not.

Tom and Gail are here for the Quickfire, as is Blais. Padma claims they just wanted to spice things up. There are 53 different ingredients laid out on the counter, plenty of produce. They need to make something “unique”. Also the sponsor today is Chipotle, because these 53 fresh ingredients go into Chipotle food. I don't know, I have never liked Chipotle. I have much fonder memories of El Pollo Loco, which was a fast-casual place that sold rotisserie chicken and Tex-Mex food and was delicious. They don't have them out here. Anyway, now Gail and Tom are drawing knives? Gail draws Gabe and Jamie, Tom draws Byron and Dawn, and Padma has Maria and Shota. Make your judge a dish from all the stuff on the counter. Each one will pick their favorite. Blais gets to try all six dishes, and then pick the overall winner out of the favorites.

Now Padma wants to have fun. Tom declares he wants “tangy” and “crunchy”. Gail asks for smoky and charred. Padma says spicy and tart. Heh. Also are these buzzwords straight out of the Chipotle press release? Dumb. Oh also you can only use the 53 ingredients on the counter. So I hope there's good stuff there. Winner gets $10,000.

30 minutes to cook. Shota is grateful it's a Quickfire because he says Japanese cooking is very subtle. It can be but I can think of spicy things? Tart things? OK maybe not together. He's copying Maria, who is making a black bean tortilla and building her flavors. Byron is making mojo sauce with crispy garlic. Mojo sauce is a citrus garlic sauce. He seems confident he can beat Dawn, although he respects her skills. Dawn is putting pork in a vacuum bag with lime and a bunch of stuff to make it tangy. Jamie covers a bowl and fills it with smoke. She wants to char her salsa like her old coworkers used to. Gabe's smoking things also. Shota wants to impress Padma, even though he doesn't generally make anything spicy. Dawn needs to make something crunchy, but it's not done yet and I think there is some frantic running around happening. Byron's pork is on the grill and it's on fire because he's forgotten it. Oops. It seems much more frantic than usual in here.

Shota: pork loin with spicy avocado puree, sauteed spinach, and crunchy black beans. Maria: fried avocado taco with black bean tortilla, Serrano peppers, fresh corn, avocado and spinach, jalapeno salsa. Padma loves Maria's tortilla and she's also surprised Shota made something spicy. Shota wins, and when Padma tells Maria she didn't think her dish was that spicy, Maria replies that she didn't want to kill Blais. Ha!

Dawn: wood-fired pork loin with crispy onions, and poblano avocado puree. Byron: mojo-grilled pork with poblano and charred corn salad, tomatillo and charred poblano salsa. Good acidity on both dishes, but Tom says one dish just kind of lacks crunch, and Dawn is the winner.

Jamie: grilled skirt steak with chipotle, smoked corn, and spicy tomatillo salsa. Gabe: bay leaf oil roasted pork with smoked jalapeno tomatillo salsa and avocado. Jamie's dish is spicy, and Gabe had plenty of charred flavor. They're both strong dishes, but Gabe is declared the winner.

Blais says all of the dishes were strong, but the winner comes down to who listened to the judges, and that's Dawn. She's found her footing after the beginning of the season and she's starting to believe she can win.

Elimination Challenge. It's time for Ed Lee. Haven't heard from him in a while, dang. It's time for tofu. Shota is thrilled. You must show off the versatility of tofu, tournament style. Dawn says “What the fuck”. Everyone will draw knives, and there will be three head-to-head battles, each with a different type of tofu. Maria is paired with Shota again to make medium tofu and she looks pissed. Dawn and Gabe have firm, and Jamie and Byron have extra firm. If you win your head-to-head, you are safe from elimination. The three losers will have to have a battle, cooking fried tofu. Then I guess someone wins and is safe, and then the last two have another battle to hopefully not be eliminated. Final round has to be a dessert with soft tofu. Maria is already freaking out and saying she doesn't make desserts. OK but you should have brought at least one to this show. Not saying it should have had tofu but it is season 18 and you should know you'll need to make a dessert. Anyway, before this happens they'll have a tour of the facility where they make tofu in Portland (100 years old!) and sounds like a tasting. 2.5 hours to prep tonight, and you will need to prep three dishes because you can't know if you'll need to cook all three rounds. Only 30 minutes per round tomorrow to cook in front of the judges.

The tour looks cool. I always like a factory tour, you know? Maria says in confessional that one of the stages of the cooking process results in a thick paste that is similar to masa dough, so she's thinking maybe this will help her. I mean she'll still have to use medium tofu right? They also fry in house, and the squares look like the tofu skin pouches you stuff rice in for a type of sushi. Not crispy crunchy squares, you know? Byron is intimidated.

Prep time. Maria has decided to make tamales with tofu instead of masa. So when you make tofu, you soak and then boil the soybeans, and you end up with soy milk and the solid pulp which is called okara. The soy milk is left for the whey to drain off, and then what's left behind is tofu that you can press or cut into squares or whatever. But the okara is what Maria is hoping to use. Wait at the factory she said it was like masa, but now she says she's using it like chorizo. But she's supposed to be using medium tofu? Shota is braising pork and tofu. Dawn lights something on fire. She's worked in a Japanese restaurant so she's used to using tofu. Her plan for the second round is Nashville hot tofu which sounds good. Gabe is just as lost as Maria, so he's making sure to put equal effort into all three dishes. Just in case. Byron wants to treat the tofu like a steak. Jamie has been listing the tofu dishes she likes the way Bubba lists shrimp dishes. Maria says her tofu chorizo is gross and grainy so she's tossing it. She'll still make tamales, but with the tofu in the masa dough and filled with potato and raisins. So she was always using the medium tofu. I was just really confused when she said “oh the okara is like masa” and then that's not what she put in the masa. Shota admits to Gabe he put all his effort into his first course and his dessert is “whatever the fuck dude”. Hmm.

Challenge day. Lots of weird dramatic shots of people getting ready and Gabe sharpening his knives on a whetstone. I don't know. The judges are at a Japanese garden which is lovely. Padma explains to everyone how the tournament is going to work, as the contestants file in to a row of prep stations set up in a courtyard facing the long table where the judges are. Maria and Shota are up first. Maria puts her hotel pan of tamales on the grill and hopes they get done. Shota's first dish is tofu six ways. Six. Gabe and Dawn get started and Gabe has a big pan of beans. Not sure if they're soybeans. They tell each other how great their dishes are, and when Gabe is shocked Dawn would brag to him Tom laughs that Dawn is getting in his head and living there rent-free. But she put her tofu in a vacuum bag and it didn't work as well as she wanted. Now she's scrambling. Maria's tamales aren't done, so she's unwrapping them from the corn husks and cutting them in half and dropping them in a wok with oil. Hmm. This does seem to result in a minor fire.

Maria: soy braised tofu tamale with masa and soy beans. It sounds like Tom questions if this is actually a tamale and Maria says she was just concerned about giving them too much. That's why it's unwrapped and cut in half? I guess. Tom seems unconvinced. Shota: soy braised tofu, soy milk yuba, shira ae and tofu crumbles. Yuba is the skin that forms on soy milk. You know how if you heat milk it gets that skin on it? Like that. Shira ae I think is a salad or a dressing with mashed tofu. They vote with paddles in front of everyone, which seems stressful, and then somehow it's a tie? What? So they have to hide in the adjoining room and discuss. Gregory liked Maria's creativity, but Tom says it was mushy and she didn't use the tofu. But Shota's dish all tasted the same, even if he used the tofu better. The winner is Shota. Maria had hope for ten minutes, she says.

Gabe: marinated and braised tofu with cabbage, soy beans, and miso chicken jus. Dawn: West Indian style brown stew tofu with charred vegetables. This is tied again, which is just dumb. Come on. These producers do not understand the concept of odd and even numbers. Gabe's dish was bright and his tofu was better to eat. Dale argues that Gabe just dumped his tofu in sauce and he didn't do anything with it, whereas Dawn braised her tofu today. Padma admits that if she had to pick a dish to order again, it would be Dawn's, but it's a tofu challenge and Gabe's tofu was better. That makes sense. The winner here is Gabe.

Byron: pan seared tofu with daikon salad and soy vinaigrette. Jamie: banh xeo with sauteed tofu and fresh herbs. Banh xeo are Vietnamese crepes. There's also tofu in the crepes. Dale leans over to his neighbors and says you could eat twelve of these. Finally there is not a tie. Jamie wins 9 to 1. Dang.

Maria, Dawn, and Byron now are cooking with fried tofu. Someone asks what Maria is making, and she says tacos but then she says no! She's not that predictable! She's making a variation on mole. Also never eating tofu again. Dawn's Nashville hot tofu sounds delicious. Byron is inspired by BBQ, because when he thinks of fried he thinks bar food. Dawn decides to put some sliced radishes on her dish, but when she uses the mandolin she slices her finger open. Now there's blood in her container of pickles and also on some of the plates. Byron and Maria jump in to help her finish because that's how this season is. Honestly I get it. It's not like she has poor time management and you don't want to help because then she won't learn.

Maria: fried tofu steak with Asian mole and fried soy bean crumble. Dawn: Nashville hot tofu with pickles and soy buttermilk ranch. When they were serving it, they subtitled a server saying “there was only one plate” so I guess even with the help she didn't get enough plates out? They don't really talk about it, although Padma says it's lovely how her competitors helped out. Also I have to point out that the tofu is in a tube like a hot dog when I fully expected a sandwich. Byron: guajillo-fried tofu with fried shrimp, smoked fried tofu puree, prosciutto and crispy tofu skins. Oh, now after they tasted everything, Padma says that since Dawn didn't get enough plates out she automatically loses and has to cook in the third round. Ed wants to vote for her in protest. Maria wins 9 to 1. So Byron has lost 9 to 1 in both of his rounds.

Byron does not feel prepared for this round. But Dawn is just rummaging through things and she doesn't seem to have any urgency. She admits in confessional that she doesn't really have a concrete plan for this dish, only components. I mean when they did Restaurant Wars and she didn't plan out her dishes until the last minute, she said that's how she works. But she had plans for the first two dishes. Was she too cocky and thought surely she wouldn't have to make dessert, the way Shota did?

Dawn: mango tofu mousse, macerated mango, diced soft tofu, and sesame okara crumble. Byron: soft tofu mousse with honey, okara and dried mango granola. So they basically made the same dish. No public voting this time, but shots for the contestants. Dawn is already crying. Melissa liked Dawn's crumble, and her dish overall had great texture and the components were at different temperatures. Byron's dish was focused and well-rounded. It is very close. Especially since both served tofu mousse with mango.

Tom says they tested their endurance today, and it's bittersweet for one of them. And that's Byron. He says it was an honor to be the first Costa Rican to make it this far and to cook for them. He's happy to have been here. He's pushed himself and he's proud.

Next week: blind tasting? Maybe? Care packages from family members, Padma asks someone if they're quitting.

Last Chance Kitchen: so there are two parts today, because we're ready to get back to the finale. Even though the preview for next week doesn't look like the finale? Who knows. LCK finale, I guess. Sara says she's excited to beat Byron to get back to the competition. I hear people whining about how fake Sara is already.

Byron says the tofu dishes weren't really him. Sara is a little surprised to see him, but Byron is nervous because he says Sara works best under pressure. It's time for the finals, and someone will return to the competition. Tom hopes he was inspired by the garden, because this challenge is about Japanese food. You have to make a bento box with the ingredients on the table. Tom tells them that a bento box has four components: rice or noodles (full disclosure you might put both, there's always rice), meat or fish, a vegetable, and a pickled item. I mean a bento box is really just whatever you want to put in there but that's a good guide I guess. Tom then reveals that if you win, you “advance to the next part of the finale”, meaning you haven't actually won yet.

30 minutes. Sounds like those four things Tom listed are the four components you will have to have. Sara knows Japanese food but she also wants to be weird and make tea rice. Can you make it in half an hour? Avishar tells her he has advice, make sure the rice is cooked. Heh. Byron wants to balance everything. He is making rice flavored with seaweed. They both have a solid plan and are making pickles first, so you can put the hot pickling liquid over the vegetables and let them soak as they cool. They're also both using umeboshi (pickled salted plum) which is interesting. Byron isn't super familiar with Japanese food, but he knows it's about editing which is not his strong suit. Sara is making fried quail eggs with uni cream. Interesting. Byron flash sears his salmon but keeps it raw in the center, which is the way to do it.

Tom appears to say time is half over, and then the current contestants show up to yell and greet the peanut gallery. Tom says they're not there to do a Quickfire, but to watch the finale of LCK. Shota loves the energy of LCK and is of course rooting for Sara. OK I have to point out neither of them have an actual bento box, but a wood tray with small bowls. Lame. At some point when Sara is explaining her dishes to Tom he makes a face and she calls him on it. Byron's rice isn't quite cooked yet so he adds some hot water? Gabe encourages Byron and Sara is like “who's side are you on?” It felt like a joke to me and everyone laughed but I guess it's possible she was being real shady.

Sara: green tea umeboshi rice; pan fried quail eggs in uni cream and Buddha hands; oven roasted eggplants with sesame; daikon pickles with shiso, lychee, and bamboo shoot. Tom asks if it was hard to come up with four dishes and Sara just kind of laughs and says she blacked out. Byron: salmon tataki with umeboshi glaze; string beans with yuzo kosho; sushi rice with wakame; pickled shiso eggplant. Byron claims to have had fun. Tom praises Sara's weird food and Byron's more traditional flavors. Only one person can move on, and that is Byron. Wow. All the shots of the contestants are of them looking upset and unhappy. Sara's rice is actually sitting in green tea like soup, and Tom is like “it's like the rice is sitting in water” and I'll have you know, TOM, that my mother, an actual Japanese person, has told me several times that before you had microwaves that's how you reheated rice. You poured hot tea over it and ate it like soup. ANYWAY. She knows now that she knows what she's doing.

Part 2 is half an hour which, why. Byron is not back in the competition yet. The current contestants can keep Byron from returning, but first Tom needs them to help create the challenge. Each of the current contestants will grab a crate and put ten items in it from the pantry. Then Byron has to make a fully composed dish with those ten ingredients. So is he making five dishes? What? Dawn is sure they're going to be cooking, so she is not interested in putting some nonsense in the crate.

Yeah they each have a crate. Shota says that Byron asked for seafood, so he put baby octopus. Heh. Gabe is trying to be nice. Shota also knows that he himself might have to cook whatever he puts. Byron is mildly freaking out. Maria put ribeye because that's what she wants to cook. So everyone puts their box up on the counter, and they're just numbered. Oh I think I see where this is going. Brooke and Kristen show up to judge, so we can remind everyone that they won LCK and then won Top Chef. Tom tells Byron he has to pick three crates to cook with. This section is dubbed over and I'm not sure why. If he picks your crate then you have to cook against Byron. Yeah that's what I guessed. Byron has to win two of the three rounds in order to return. Tom does not say that if a current contestant loses they will be eliminated, which I think is the usual. You can keep the LCK person out but no one else is in danger of leaving. Byron eliminates Dawn's box because there's a lot of baking ingredients in it, flour, eggs, baking powder. And Shota's box is full of baby octopus and bonito and gochujang so that's out too. Jamie's box has Asian ingredients too but not as exotic. Tom calls Gabe out on being too helpful. Byron gets to pick order, and he wants to take on Gabe first. There are a lot of vegetables, and he is excited about it so do that first. Then Maria, leaving the Asian box for last.

Gabe says he has an advantage, because he'd never pick a box of ingredients without already having a dish in mind. I think they only have 20 minutes to cook. Gabe has planned braised radicchio, it sounds like. Byron is making a salad. Maria tells Shota she wants Byron to come back but it also makes it harder for them. There are dried chilis in the box so they're both soaking them immediately. They've also both put the radicchio on the grill. There is a lot of chit chat with the peanut gallery and the judges. Byron says this is exhausting and he'd like to win twice and not have to cook three times.

Byron: salad with bacon, guajillo and raisin puree, and shaved manchego. Gabe: guajillo braised radicchio, bacon and golden raisin jam, braised brassica (he said it was romenesco? Looks like broccoli) and shaved manchego. Gabe's dish is hearty and warm, and Byron's dish has enough sweetness to balance the radicchio. Tom does complain that Byron's bacon is almost too crispy? Gabe's dish has to be eaten all together or it's too bland. Hmm. Anyway, the first round goes to Gabe. The judges tell Byron that Gabe's dish was a little more developed and highlighted the radicchio.

Maria picked her ingredients with herself in mind and she already knows the simple dish she wants to make. Another 20 minutes. Byron is also keeping it simple, and he's familiar with all of these ingredients. They're both roasting the tomatoes but Maria is coating her steak in a salsa. Byron is breathing heavily and says that every move has to be thought out because he doesn't have the energy. Maria wants to showcase the steak and the mushrooms. But she hates being watched so it might be throwing her. Especially since they're giving her shit for making a huge blender full of salsa. Byron seems flustered and he's asking if he should add his salsa to the plate? Doesn't he have to or he won't use all the ingredients? Jamie hopes Maria wins because she doesn't want to cook. In the end Byron puts the salsa on to cut the richness of everything else on the plate. He says if this dish sends him home he'll be very upset. Maria is happy with her plate. She feeds Shota the end of one of the steaks. Hee.

See the problem with this set up is I know how much time is left in this episode of LCK so it's obvious who will win this round. Byron: pan roasted NY strip steak with chanterelle saffron puree, roasted tomatoes, and mushroom chipotle sauce. Thank you to whoever is in charge of these chryons for using Oxford commas, unlike whoever writes them on the main show. Maria: steak with mushroom and ancho powder marinade, grilled tomatoes, onion saffron sauce, and sauteed mushrooms. Brooke says Maria's sauce is a little salty but the beef stands up to it and her mushrooms are great. Kristen loves Byron's saffron puree. Tom says Byron's two sauces were very similar. But he still wins. Maria's dish was a little salty. Shota apologizes because I guess when he tasted the steak he told her to put a little more salt on it. And she did. Maria interviews that she doesn't blame Shota at all, she blames herself for letting another chef override her own palate.

Byron tells Tom he saved Jamie for last because he thinks her ingredients are easy. Really? I would have thought he was hoping to beat Gabe and Maria with familiar ingredients and then not have to make Asian food again. He tells Jamie no offense, he doesn't think her dish isn't hard, and Jamie immediately fires back “It's hard now.” Heh. Byron is exhausted. Jamie is offended and she's out for blood, yelling shit from “Braveheart” and throwing things around. Byron's thrown off by the rice noodles in the box. He says you're supposed to soak them in cold water, but there isn't time, so he's soaking them in hot water. Jamie is frying them instead. She's got turmeric oil and chimichurri. Byron has kale oil? He puts a bunch of stuff in a blender and then picks up his crate, knocking the whole thing over and somehow not spilling it? Like, the lid stayed on and he didn't lose any. He knocks over the fish sauce but who cares at that point. Now he's yelling and everyone is shocked the puree wasn't lost. But in the end Byron's worried that this oil that he saved is too spicy. He's not even thinking straight at this point. Jamie's pork chops aren't searing so she puts them straight on the floor of the oven. Byron resorts to boiling his noodles, and he does mention that he knows he should rinse them but he's not.

Byron: marinated and grilled pork with turmeric and coconut sauce over noodles. Jamie: roasted pork with turmeric Serrano chimichurri sauce, coconut braised kale, crispy rice noodles. Kristen loves Jamie's kale, but it is spicy and she wishes for more seasoning. Byron's noodles are gummy but the sauce is good. They feel the pork, which is cut into small pieces, just feels like an afterthought. Tom says the winner is Jamie. She immediately starts dancing and making weird noises. Byron's proud he pushed himself so hard. He really did fight for it. But the contestants were able to keep it at five.